The Achievements of Bandwidth Measurement Techniques in IP Networks

Bandwidth is the metric used to describe the network information transfer capacity.It is an important measure to evaluate the quality of services in a network.This paper emphasizes the importance and classifies the techniques of bandwidth measurement for IP networks.It gives the definitions of measures,such as link / path bandwidth,available bandwidth and bulk data transfer capacity,and analyzes the principles and merits of typical bandwidth measurement techniques.It also introduces several corresponding open source tools for these measurements.and discusses the main factors which impact the measuring constringency speed and accuracy.It finally gives a view of further research and application trends in this area.